Cuomo Frets Undue Influence In NY Election

Gov. Andrew Cuomo in a conference call with reporters on Thursday said he was concerned hackers, perhaps backed by a foreign government, could “wreak havoc” in New York elections, including his own bid for a third term.

Cuomo held the call with Minnesota U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar to push for a bill that would require the disclosure of political advertising on social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter.

Cuomo a day earlier joked that Russian President Vladimir Putin could be behind the push to have actress and advocate Cynthia Nixon challenge him for the Democratic primary. Asked Thursday, however, he is concerned there could be a cyber campaign similar to what Russian-backed trolls allegedly perform in the 2016 presidential campaign, Cuomo said “short answer, yes.”

“I don’t think the Russians say, ‘we’re only going to interfere in federal elections’,” he said. “We know they were targeting 21 states. No one said in those 21 states they were only targeting federal elections.”

Without pointing to a specific or identified threat to election integrity, Cuomo suggested the elections and campaigns were vulnerable to any number of efforts to unduly influence voters.

“I think part of the goal is wreak havoc. Again, if it’s not Mr. Vladimir Putin, it could be North Korea, it could be any country,” he said. “The system is porous right now. Just think about it, anyone with a few million dollars could wreak havoc in a race on social media with no disclosure whatsoever.”

At the same time, Cuomo said he was concerned local boards of election could be venerable to cyber security breaches.

“This is a frightening situation when you think about it,” he said. “The local boards of elections are not the most electronically sophisticated operations.”

Elections officials have insisted an actual hacking of vote tallies is highly unlikely in New York, given the state operates a decentralized system of voting.

A more likely concern for elected officials and challengers has been social media ads that have sought to influence voters’ perceptions of a candidate. Lawmakers in the Assembly and Senate have previously called for greater transparency in how those ads are paid for and disclosed.

“The largest single problem right now are the paid advertisements,” Cuomo said. “That’s what gets the most exposure the fastest. Let’s start with regulating those which we don’t do now.”

This entry was posted by Nick Reisman on March 8, 2018 at 2:46 pm, and is filed under Andrew Cuomo. Follow any responses to this post through RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.